Planetfall
by Arkaine
Summary: parts of the story taken from the quake2 manual and expanded upon.


PlanetFall  
  
Long shadows claw desperately away from his dusty combat boots, fueled   
  
by the relentless sun of a late Texas afternoon. Shading his eyes against the   
  
glare, he squints for the thousandth time at the line of soldiers ahead of him.   
  
It stretches on endlessly across the rubble, disappearing at last into the cool   
  
shadows of a troop carrier. Soon he'll walk up the ramp into the ship, climb   
  
into his one-man cocoon, tear through the interplanetary gateway, and smash down   
  
light-years away from the blowing sand and blasted ruins that surround the   
  
Dallas-Metro crater. "What the hell is taking so long?" he snarls, slamming the   
  
battered barrel of his rifle, against his scarred palm. "I've waited long   
  
enough. Time to kick some ass." Slightly rocking back and forth under the   
  
sweltering August sun, he spits out of the side of his mouth, rubs his eyes, and   
  
thinks back to the day when the wretched creatures first attacked. Like flaming   
  
meteors, their crafts pounded into the Earth and unbelievably, these bio-  
  
mechanical aliens... these hideous monsters... swarmed out while their ships   
  
still sizzled with reentry heat. They killed or captured anything that lived. We   
  
figured that they were after our planet's resources: minerals, metals, and   
  
water: things like that. But their onboard storage facilities did little to   
  
disguise what they considered to be resources: fleshy limbs and organs for new   
  
cyborgs, and of course, food. The line moves. And moves again. Into the cool   
  
shadows at last. The assembled armies branch off into new lines divided by corps   
  
and unit. "I can't deal with this shit - what's the friggin' hold-up?"   
  
"Cool your jets, marine." Tokay mutters and smiles over his shoulder.   
  
"We'll all get a few Strogg heads to take home as souvenirs. I promise you that."   
  
"You, soldier 3585." The medtech's voice startles him. "You in or out? "   
  
Competent hands guide him into the coffin-like opening of his Mark 9A drop pod:   
  
sleek, dark, and invisible to the Stroggos defense systems. One of the techs begins   
  
to drop the reinforced pod door. "Sleep tight, soldier. You'll see sunlight in less than   
  
six and half-hours. Not our sun, mind you." SLAM Pitch black except for the mild   
  
glow of his video readout system in front of him. He's done this a dozen times   
  
in the sim classes. No sweat. Just a few short hours to sleep, recharge, and   
  
then the moment of glory. But this time it's for real. It's also time to think.   
  
He recalls his first official day of training; his unit commander discussing how   
  
these damn parasites made it to earth and other nearby colonies in the first   
  
place. By employing our best satellites and long-range scanners, we learned how   
  
they traveled light years so quickly - the Strogg used these black hole-like   
  
gateways as their highway to heaven. We still don't know if they created these   
  
rips in the fabric of space and time, or if they simply discovered them by   
  
accident. Either way... it's just like opening the door to an all-you-can-eat   
  
restaurant for these bastards. In about two hours, we'll be entering the same   
  
interstellar portals, to hit 'em where it hurts... on their own turf. He closes   
  
his eyes and relishes this thought. Eventually, he nods off to the low hypnotic   
  
hum of the troop carrier. *Crackle* ... *fzzzz* ...   
  
"Greetings to the people of the Coalition. This is Flag Admiral Stromgulf,   
  
speaking to you from the bridge deck of Phobos. We are entering the outer orbits   
  
of Stroggos, the alien's home system. As we had postulated, Stroggos' atmosphere   
  
is harsh but breathable. We expect to make planetfall soon. Now is the time to   
  
switch on your debriefing panel if ya need it."   
  
"Boomer?" the voice crackles through every soldier's headset. "Drop X-ray  
  
squad in 30 on my mark. You copy?"   
  
"Roger that!" In another pod, his sergeant snaps back.   
  
"OK boys and girls, you see the clock on your heads-up. Two demerits for   
  
anyone who up-chucks during bounce and roll!"   
  
*Shthunk! * His drop pod is shot from the side of the carrier and hurtles   
  
downward. *Wheee-oooooo!* Incendiary atmosphere howls past the pod's rapidly   
  
heating shell. *Ka-WHUMP! * The pod wall suddenly buckles to his right, but   
  
stays intact. Another pod must have clipped his on its way in. ECM didn't   
  
indicate enemy fire. Shit. Thrusters and stabilizing gyros are fading. Based on   
  
the pings, the other pods are pulling away. Below him, the large alien city   
  
roars into focus on the screen. But where are the other pods? They were there a   
  
minute ago. Suddenly, distorted radio chatter lights up,   
  
"Mayday! Mayday! Lost all power... shielding failed... missed dz... Some   
  
kind of EMP is... kzzzt... us out. We're dropping like fli... zzzzkkkzzzt". Silence.   
  
Damn! If the Strogg have electromagnetic pulse defenses and we failed to detect them...   
  
all of us are in the shitter. That HUGE blip has to be the big gun he thinks as he does a slow   
  
dogleg left while his navcomp finds a place to land when all of a sudden retros kick in   
  
and propel him south.   
  
"What the...?" Before he can take command of the ship, it skips across  
  
the lip of a crater and slams into the ground, a good distance away from his   
  
target. Dazed and bleeding from a head cut he toggles open the labeled arsenal   
  
bins and reaches for where his gear ought to be stowed. Damn. Nothing but his   
  
rifle, and enviro-armor suit. Damn again. He leaps out the crushed pod door, alone,   
  
with rifle in hand. As he looks at his surroundings, he discovers that he is not alone.   
  
The adrenaline starts pumping through his veins. Two strogg guards come running  
  
over from where they had witnessed the very ungraceful landing. "Damn."   
  
He whispers as he ducks behind the pod, making sure his weapon is ready to fire.   
  
He switches the ammo feed from "semi-automatic" to "automatic" in hopes that  
  
he can overpower them. As they get closer, he can hear them talk with their phony,  
  
gutteral, mechanical voices. Voices that sound like they should be made by a   
  
hydraulic pump instead of vocal chords.  
  
"It's my turn to inspect the vehicle" says the first strogg to the second.  
  
"No, it's my turn... you had the last five. It's my turn to eat." was the   
  
second's reply.  
  
"Screw you both!" Yells the marine as he burst from his hiding spot,   
  
gun blaring. Neither of the strogg were prepared for the pilot to be alive, let   
  
alone shooting at them! The first one fell with a bullet hole in his face plate   
  
among other, less serious wounds (from a strogg's point of view). The other   
  
falls, much to it's surprise... probably due to the fact that it no longer has any legs  
  
to support it. The marine casually walks over to the wounded strogg and removs  
  
its armaments. Tossing them off to the side, he says "My name is Jim Raynor   
  
and not one of you sons of Bitches is gonna eat me." He then switches his gun   
  
back to "semi-automatic" and puts a bullet into the strogg's half corroded brain.   
  
He then decides to radio the phobos to get an idea as to where he was   
  
supposed to go next. "Phobos, this is Lt. Jim Raynor, request directions to the dz.   
  
repeat Phobos, this is Lt. Jim Raynor, Request directions to dz." He waits several   
  
minutes and after he recieves no reply, decids that, either his radio is not working,   
  
or the phobos has left. After thinking about it for a few minutes, he decids that it   
  
was his own radio and that he would need to find another to complete his mission.   
  
He searches both of the strogg bodies and finds nothing of use. He searches the   
  
surrounding area for some useful item but none are found. It is just about then  
  
that he remembers that his pod had been set up with a tracking device and also a  
  
flare gun with a dozen flares. He pulls the crushed pod door from it's hinges and   
  
searchesthe pod. Behind the saftey netting, he finds the flare gun.  
  
"I'll hold on to this until I find the tracking device" he thinks to himself. After   
  
searching the entire pod, he discovers that his pod had no such tracking device.   
  
"Why do they keep screwing me over?" He yells. Stepping back outside, he loads   
  
the flare gun. Pointing it skyward, he pulls the trigger. *POP* the flare shoots into the   
  
sky, bright red and growing steadily brighter. "Now, all I need to do is wait." he thinks   
  
to himself. leaning on the pod, he stands guard, aware that he has also given off his   
  
position to the strogg. four hours later still nothing, the flare had already fallen to the   
  
ground and went out. "I guess i'll set off another" he   
  
thinks. *POP* a stream of green flame shoots into the sky. About a half hour later,   
  
a marine Sky-cycle comes roaring up to the pod.   
  
"Hey... what're you doing out this far?" Asked the pilot of the sky-cycle.   
  
"Trying not to get myself killed" replys Jim.  
  
"Well hop on, and hold on tight, did you know that you are about 20 miles off course?   
  
I only barely saw that red flare. At first I thought it was just an illusion, but it lasted about the   
  
same ammount of time that a military flare does, and that second flare was a dead giveaway.  
  
you're lucky, my company just eliminated a squad of strogg headed your way." said the pilot. But  
  
due to exhaustion and lack of adrenaline in his system Jim had passed out.  



End file.
